Scouters and Scouts in Action: They saved the man on the plane!

From left to right: Ariel Yaron, Moshe Grimaldi, Evan Gilder, Joel Shuart and Elka Travis all used their training to help save a man who lost consciousness on an airplane.

Scouting America’s wilderness first aid curriculum continues to save lives in places other than the wilderness.

There’s the Virginia husband who credits his wilderness first aid training with helping him keep his cool when he woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of his wife experiencing a medical emergency in their home.

There are the Oregon Scout leaders who saved the life of someone who was having a seizure in the middle of a Washington, D.C., traffic jam on their way to the National Scout Jamboree.

Perhaps most famously, there were the Wisconsin Scouts and adults who were able to help several people after their train derailed in Missouri on the way home from Philmont Scout Ranch.

And now, there’s this: two youth and three adults who were able to restore the pulse of a man who had lost consciousness on their flight from Denver to New York.

The group had just gotten off the trail at Philmont, where they had completed a 100-plus-mile backpacking trek over the previous two weeks. Every adult on the trip was trained in basic CPR and wilderness first aid.

Headed home from Philmont

On July 11, 10 Scouting America members boarded a Southwest Airlines flight in Denver a little bit before 1 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. The group had traveled to Philmont as part of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting’s 2024 National Jewish Philmont Trek program.

It had been a long day. The group had traveled more than five hours from Cimarron, New Mexico, to catch their flight home.

About halfway through the flight, the flight crew asked if there were any medical professionals on board. As it turns out, there were two doctors and two nurses.

One of the nurses was Elka Travis, an adult leader from Troop 613 in West Hempstead, N.Y., who was sitting next to Evan Gilder, committee chair for Pack, Troop and Crew 613 out of White Plains, N.Y.

Travis joined the other three medical professionals near the front of the plane, and for a couple of minutes, Gilder couldn’t tell what was going on. Then came an urgent announcement over the plane’s speaker system.

“Evan! Get to the front of the plane!”

On the ground near the first row of seats, a man laid motionless. It appeared he had suffered cardiac arrest.

A medical emergency

Travis and the other nurse were attempting to get air into the man’s lungs using the plane’s bag valve mask. The doctors were scouring the on-board supplies for medication that could help the man.

That left Gilder alone to perform chest compressions.

His training kicked in, and he began his work. However, as anyone who has ever performed chest compressions in a real-life emergency will tell you, it’s an exhausting process. After a few minutes, Gilder received assistance from three other trained personnel: Ariel Yaron, a 16-year-old Eagle Scout; Moshe Grimaldi, a 16-year-old Life Scout, and Joel Shuart, an adult from Troop 2 in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.

The four of them took turns performing CPR, rotating in and out whenever anyone got tired.

The entire 2024 National Jewish Trek to Philmont crew. The National Jewish Committee on Scouting has been sending crews to Philmont as part of this program since 2019.

Running out of time

Around 45 minutes after the man had lost consciousness, a pulse was detected. The plane was diverted to Pittsburgh, and the man was immediately taken into advanced medical care.

A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines confirmed to me that the incident did indeed occur as the Scouts have described it. Though they couldn’t give me an update on the victim’s condition, Gilder says he heard from one of the doctors that the man was stabilized and sedated.

“We can confirm, based on reports from our flight crew, that multiple Scouts volunteered, along with traveling medical professionals, to assist with the medical emergency,” says the Southwest Airlines spokesperson. “Reports indicated that most of those onboard that volunteered to assist were part of the Scout troop and that it was very well organized by the troop leader.”

What is wilderness first aid?

Wilderness first aid (WFA) is a term that commonly refers to any training course that focuses on prevention, assessment and treatment for an ill or injured person in a remote environment where advanced care and/or rapid transport is not readily available.

Scouting America defines “not readily available” as being an hour or more away from advanced care.

Though Scouting America does not teach WFA classes itself, it has developed a WFA training curriculum specifically for Scouts and Scouters to help them provide assessment and treatment miles from advanced care.

Youth 14 years old and up and all Scouting America adults can take the 16-hour WFA course based on that curriculum.

Gilder says he’s been trained in basic CPR and wilderness first aid for years, but this was the first time he’d ever had to use it.

“People often ask me what Scouting is all about, and my answer is always the same: to Be Prepared for what life throws our way,” Gilder says. “I am proud to say, our group faced a challenge and showed what they can do, even when faced with a tough situation.”

Click here to learn more about Scouting America’s wilderness first aid program.

Photos courtesy of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting


About Aaron Derr 503 Articles
Aaron Derr is the senior editor of Scout Life and Scouting magazines, and also a former Cubmaster and Scouts BSA volunteer.